


Memorari

by NocturneByChopin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anterograde Amnesia, M/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9304766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturneByChopin/pseuds/NocturneByChopin
Summary: Bucky used to be an avid reader, before the war. Now he gets distracted real easy.James Barnes keeps forgetting that he can't remember





	

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up: Even though Steve mentions Bucky has anterograde amnesia, I have taken some liberties with the way I have presented the condition for the sake of drama. Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

He is by the lake, feeding the ducks. It is huge, the lake, much bigger than he can see from here, extending past the horizon and into some other, unknown place. Bucky’s never been in this side of the house before. He likes it very much: its quiet, and the ducks might be a very good source of company. He breaks off a piece of bread, looks down.

There’s ducks by the lake, looking up at him expectantly.

He’s never seen the ducks before.

 

 

 

 

The house is big. There’s his room, with the large balcony that overlooks the lake, and the canopy bed. There’s also other rooms, with huge windows that let in a lot of light. And the kitchen. The kitchen is also very big; that’s where he gets breakfast, usually alone, sometimes with other people. Guests. He doesn’t get too many guests; maybe once or twice a month. But he’s fine with that; he likes the quiet, makes it easier to think.

He hasn’t had a lot of time to be alone with his thoughts since the war.

 

 

 

 

His morning routine is: wake up, brush his teeth, go to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

There is someone already in the kitchen when he makes it there. A woman. She’s gorgeous, with red curls cascading down her back messily and rumpled pajamas, licking the spoon as she eats a yogurt without a care in the world. He didn’t know they had yogurt. Behind her, the coffeemaker is performing its precious duty, two white mugs next to it at the ready. She looks up when she hears him enter, her sleepy smile giving way to something like shock, then freezing into an expression he can’t quite read.

“James. Your mouth.”

He touches his lips with his fingers. They come away red with blood.

“I’m bleeding.”

“Yes, you are.” She sets the yogurt container down and makes her way to him. “Did you brush your teeth too many times again?”

“I… don’t remember. I don’t think so, though.”

“Well, let’s get you all cleaned up, okay?”

They walk to the bathroom in his room together, her arm hooked through his. Bucky likes her already, with all her curves and her green eyes that look at him with a question; he feels as if they’re already close friends. He wonders how she got into his house, then finds himself not caring all that much.

She steps away to get a towel. He looks at himself in the mirror and brings his hand to his mouth, horrified.

“Christ. I’m bleeding,” he says.

 

 

 

 

Bucky’s feeding the ducks. There is a woman next to him he’s charmed into accompanying him. She’s a total doll, with red hair and amazing curves and gorgeous green eyes that peer up at him whenever she thinks he’s not looking. She is interested, too, he can see it in the way she flips her hair so it catches the light just right and the way she looks at him from under her lashes. He feels pretty good about his odds tonight. He’s regaling her with tales from the war, editing the unsavory parts into something lighthearted.

(they’re not lies, he reasons. Just… omissions.)

The lake is huge, much bigger than he can see, and he doesn’t remember how long they’ve been walking, but it’s probably been a while; he’s never been to this side of the house before, so he’s not sure.

“James?” She touches his elbow lightly. “Maybe we should start heading back.”

“Please, call me Bucky,” he replies smoothly.

She smiles. “Call me Nat.”

Bucky retraces their steps. The ducks are playing in the water, splashing water. He thinks this is a sight Steve would have liked to sketch.

There is a woman with her delicate hand wrapped around his bicep. She’s extremely attractive, her red hair glinting beautifully under the early afternoon light. She peers up at him with huge, gorgeous green eyes.

Bucky smiles his rakish smile, the one guaranteed to make dames weak at the knees. “Hi. Name’s Bucky Barnes.”

The woman laughs, utterly charmed. “Natasha. Please call me Nat.”

 

 

 

 

He finds a book in the living room, a Captain America comic. He chuckles to himself; Steve keeps misplacing his stuff everywhere in this house. He sits on the couch and opens the book on a random page. Bucky used to be an avid reader, before the war. Now he gets distracted real easy, forgets what he’d just read. He used to have a much longer attention span, before: he could stay still for hours, like a statue, waiting for his target to cross his viewfinder. There was a lot of excitement back then, among the chaos and the fear: you could feel your brain working overtime just to try to keep you ahead of the enemy. He misses that, a little. He secretly misses the war.

He wonders what the Commandos are doing. He wonders why they haven’t visited him all the time he’s been here.

He turns the page. He might not be as great a reader as he used to, but these pictures are really good.

 

 

 

 

The ducks flock to him when he walks by the lake.

Odd; he’s never seen them before. In fact, he hasn’t been in this side of the house before.

 

 

 

 

Steve walks into the house very late at night with a duffle bag. He looks exhausted, hair plastered to his head and a hard edge to his eyes that Bucky doesn’t like very much. He turns to Bucky, though, and smiles, as bright as the sun, and Bucky is breathless for a second that stretches into a minute. He stares at Steve.

“Hey Buck. How was your day?” Steve asks, dropping the bag on the wooden floor.

“I might be in love with you,” Bucky says, and it’s not what he had meant to say, not at all, _where the hell did that come from?_ He’s already backtracking, adding a layer of charm to pass his mistake off as brotherly teasing; but Steve’s smile, if anything, gets brighter, even more beautiful, and Bucky thinks he might go blind from it. He’s blushing. He looks away, his toes suddenly very interesting. He curls them up. He can hear Steve huffing a laugh. It makes Bucky’s heart beat wildly.

“I love you too, Buck,” Steve says. Bucky raises his head.

“… Steve? When’d you get here?” he asks. Steve look exhausted, hair all plastered to his head as if he’d been wearing a helmet. There’s a little bit of dirt smeared around his nose, as if he’d washed his face off quickly and missed that spot. “God, go to bed, you look like you’re gonna fall over!”

Steve’s face falls. Bucky wonders if he said something wrong; he doesn’t remember what he’d said, the conversation had been too fast for him to follow.

Steve seems to shake himself off the strange mood that fell over him. “Yeah. Tired. Buck, let’s watch some TV?”

“… tee vee? What’s a tee vee?”

“It’s a—nevermind. I’m putting this away, then I’ll come down and we can eat dinner.”

“I can make it. Dinner, that is,” Bucky blurts out. He feels guilty for some reason, as if he’d done something he wasn’t supposed to, but he can’t remember what.

Steve doesn’t say anything for a very long time, just looks at Bucky. Bucky looks back.

“That sounds good,” Steve says finally. He stares at Bucky some more, then turns toward his bedroom.

Bucky makes his way to the kitchen. It’s mostly clean, except for a few dishes that haven’t been washed. He shrugs; he’s here, might as well wash them.

Steps approach from behind. Bucky turns around from vigorously scrubbing a dirty pan to see Steve walk into the kitchen, soft shirt and comfortable sweatpants making him look rumpled— _Cozy_ , Bucky thinks. His hair is freshly washed, and he smells like shampoo and something uniquely Steve. _Home_. Bucky grins to hide the sudden, unexpected awkwardness that fills him.

“You’re home! Didn’t hear you come in,” he’s saying. His heart is hammering against his chest. “Dinner?”

 

 

 

 

His morning routine consists of: waking up, brushing his teeth, getting breakfast.

Today, he wakes up well into the afternoon.

 _I must’ve been very tired_ , he thinks as he makes his way to the bathroom.  He grabs his toothbrush. It’s wet. He doesn’t think very much of it.

Just another quirk in his life.

 

 

 

 

There’s a knock on the door. Bucky looks up from the pot of boiling pasta and looks at Steve. “Are we expecting a guest?” He asks him, but Steve just shrugs and goes to the door. He looks back at the pot and the sauce he’s left simmering next to it. There should be enough for all of them. He adds some more pasta to the pot and starts chopping another tomato, just in case.

Steve comes into the kitchen with a gorgeous redhead. She’s making easy talk with Steve, her smile a bit tired but nonetheless extremely attractive, the kind Bucky would love directed at him. Bucky raises his eyebrows and looks between the two of them.

“Hello there,” he’s saying, eyes darting between the two of them as he waits for an introduction. Steve has done spectacularly well, Bucky thinks.

Steve doesn’t have the decency to be embarrassed, which actually surprises Bucky a bit; he’s always been a bit shy about the dames he dates. In fact, he looks almost… tired. “Bucky, this is Natasha, a coworker. Natasha, this is my best friend Bucky.”

“Hello, Ja—Bucky,” Natasha says. “Please call me Nat.”

“Coworker, huh,” Bucky smirks, and Natasha—Nat—rolls her eyes. She shakes the hand Bucky is offering. Bucky’s eyes dart to Steve. “Stevie, I should probably work with you.”

Nat laughs. It’s very melodic, her laugh, throaty and sultry. Steve finally— _finally_ —gives him one of his fond, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you smiles. “Shouldn’t you be making dinner?” he tells him.

Bucky turns around. The sauce is about to burn. He’d forgotten about it.

He finishes dinner. He serves himself one plate and is about to dig in when a cough behind him stops him. Steve is looking at him expectantly. There’s a stunning redhead next to him, her perfectly pouty lips tense, and Bucky’s seen her before but can’t remember her name for the life of him. Bucky smiles bashfully.

“Sorry. Completely forgot you were there. Let me get you some—”

“I’ll do it,” Steve says, reaching over to get two clean plates. “Natasha and you can go and catch up.”

Bucky feels guilty. “I didn’t mean to—”

Steve sets the plates down and reaches out to touch Bucky’s shoulder. “Buck, I got it. You’ve done enough.”

That’s the thing: Bucky doesn’t remember doing anything. But he nods and follows the woman Steve brought with him to the dining table.

“Steve tells me you were a soldier, before,” she starts. That gets Bucky’s attention.

“True.” He fixes her with a look. “What else did he say about me?”

The woman smiles. “That you’d try to be charming.”

“Lies. I don’t try, it just comes naturally to me.” He leans forward, hands on the table, as if he’s about to share a secret. “Why? Is it working?”

The woman doesn’t say anything, she just laughs. Bucky chalks it up as a win.

“So,” Bucky says after a pause. “Steve and you—”

“Oh no, Steve and I just work for the same people,” she waves a hand dismissively. “It’s extremely dangerous and exhausting and doesn’t leave any time or energy for any sort of attachment.”

Bucky blinks, unsure of what to say to all that. “I’m… sorry?”

The woman chuckles, husky and deep and Bucky feels something stir inside of him. “Besides, he already has someone, or so I hear.”

This is news to Bucky. He is pretty sure he would’ve remembered something as huge as Steve having any romantic interest toward someone. It stings, a little, knowing that Steve kept something like this from him.

(it hurts more than he cares to admit. Anyway, it’s not like he’s Steve’s mother; he can choose to keep things from Bucky if he wants. The jerk.)

“Ja—Bucky, it’s not like that,” the woman—and how embarrassing, he’s already forgotten her name—quickly adds. “He doesn’t _like_ to keep it from you; and I’m pretty sure no one was supposed to know about it. I found out by accident.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Her words don’t reassure him in the least.

“Thing is, the relationship between them—it’s… complicated. Steve thinks it’s better if nothing comes out of it.”

Bucky looks at her. Her hands are sure and steady on the table, and her eyes look at him earnestly. It’s hard not to believe her words. But Bucky knows Steve, Bucky has known him for a lifetime and Steve deserves the world; he deserves someone who is capable of loving him just as completely and selflessly as Steve does. (Bucky secretly, very secretly, knows such a person doesn’t exist.)

“He deserves to be happy,” he says, carefully.

“I know, James,” she responds.

Steve chooses that time to sit at the table bringing several plates. He can smell the tomatoes and herbs, and he’s suddenly back in Brooklyn with his family. He’s sixteen again, far too young and with far too many hopes and bursting at the seams with the possibilities ahead of him. It’s very nostalgic.

“Steve. I didn’t know you could cook,” Bucky teases. “Did you get my mom’s recipe?”

Steve just smiles, close-lipped and mysterious.

“Just eat, Buck,”

 

 

 

 

Bucky is screaming.

It’s very late at night and all the lights are off. Bucky had been sleeping, he thinks, dreaming something awful, though he can’t remember any of it. He can feel the fear, though, gripping at his chest and making it impossible to breathe. He claws at his left arm desperately, looking for something.

Steve bursts into the room and approaches him.

“Buck—it’s fine, it was a nightmare,” Steve is saying. He sounds strong and sure even as Bucky screams and sobs. He sits on the bed next to Bucky and grabs his hand. “Stop that, you’re hurting yourself.”

Bucky stops. He stares at Steve, half illuminated by the moon that filters in from the window. Steve has terrible bags under his eyes and his hair is messy and tangled. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all.

“I don’t remember my nightmare, Steve,” Bucky says, and oh god, it feels like he’s losing his mind, like he’s losing himself, like there’s something so awful that he’s chosen to forget and his sanity, it’s slipping—

“It’s okay, Buck. You’re safe,” Steve gets closer. “You’re here, with me.”

Bucky lets go. He leans forward until his forehead touches Steve’s shoulder and starts breathing harshly. He doesn’t cry, no—you forget how to cry once you’ve gone to war—but it’s very close. Steve wraps his arms around him and tells him sweet nothings, and it’s a reversal of roles, this: Bucky used to be the one holding Steve, all of 5-foot nothing and a victim of his own body, as he suffered through yet another asthma attack, yet another crippling ache.

He says as much. Steve laughs—and he thinks he feels Steve’s lips on his hair. “Just returning the favor, Buck.”

“Stay?” Bucky hadn’t mean to sound so pathetic, but he knows he doesn’t want to stay alone.

“Of course. Scoot over.”

They arrange themselves until they’re lying side to side. Steve is looking at him; Bucky is staring at the ceiling. His hands are still shaking, a little. This room is too dark at night, even with the natural light from the moon, he thinks.

“I don’t remember my nightmare,” Bucky is saying. He fixes his eyes on a spot in the ceiling. “But I know it was about a monster, I think.”    

“A monster?”

“Yeah. He… killed a lot of people. I don’t—Steve, _I don’t remember_.”

“It’s okay, Buck. It was just a dream.”

Steve sounds so rational as he says it. Bucky nods and turns his head to look at Steve.

“It felt so real, though.”

“Try to sleep, if you can.”

“You too. I’m sorry I woke you—”

Steve shifts a little so he can face Bucky more fully. “I wasn’t asleep. It’s okay. Rest now.”

“Okay,” he says, even though he’s sure he won’t be able to sleep at all.

He is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

 

 

 

 

He’s in the bathroom, reaching for his toothbrush when he notices the gashes.

Deep, jagged cuts in his left arm, as if someone had been violently scratching the skin.

That’s not what grabs Bucky’s attention.

What makes him stop and stare is the jumble of wires poking out of the skin. There’s no blood, no bone, nothing. He pokes one of the cuts, moves the skin aside a little. Metal. He can’t feel anything.

Bucky tears into this own arm. More wires, a metal skeleton. He screams. Steve finds him kneeling on the floor, surrounded by flaps of artificial skin and a mess of wires and rods in place of an arm. The nails of his right hand are jagged and bloody. He grabs his phone.

“Tony,” Steve tells the person at the other end of the line without preamble. “It’s happened again. How fast can you come?”

 

 

 

 

Bucky wakes up extremely groggy and with a burning desire to roll over and go back to sleep. He’s precisely doing just that when he hears voices. He perks up, stays really still, and listens.

A male. He doesn’t recognize his voice: “It’s happened too many times Steve. Think about—”

“Not a chance,” Steve is saying, and he sounds resolute, the exact same tone of voice as when he’s being goddamn stubborn. “I’m not sending Bucky to some care facility—”

“What are you gonna do when he breaks a bone? When he forgets how to fucking use the toilet?”

“Tony—”

“He’s right, Steve.” A female voice. He’s definitely heard it before, and it’s nagging him not knowing where. “He’s… not entirely safe here.”

“Natasha, not you too.”

“He’s alone except for you and I can see it. You’re suffering too.”

“He has you too.”

“As far as he’s concerned I’m your girlfriend, Steve. Or some random woman who shows up in his kitchen and eats all his food.” She sounds pained, as if she’s holding back tears. “I’m a total stranger to him; our history together might as well have not happened at all.”

Silence. 

“You love him. We can see that. But maybe—it’s time to let go.”

“Like you let go of him?” Steve sounds furious. “This is not about his safety, Natasha, it’s just about how he’s become too much of a burden to you.”

That male voice again. “Wow Cap. Harsh.”

“Suddenly he’s nothing but yet another liability.  Someone you can just get rid of like you’ve gotten rid of everyone who ever cared about you. You want to leave? Door’s that way. Both of you. But I’m staying here with him.”

“Fuck you, Steve Rogers.” Her voice is watery. “Always having the moral high ground. I loved him too, once. You’re not the only one who wants what’s best for him.”

Bucky springs out of bed. There’s a loud racket as the tray of surgical instruments that had been next to him clatter to the floor. There’s some… metal wire coming from a machine that connects to his left arm. He turns from the mayhem to look at the three people who are standing by his door.

“Steve! You brought guests? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Steve looks at Bucky oddly, as if he’s trying really hard to hide his emotions. “I was going to."

 

 

 

 

They walk around the lake. It’s big, bigger than Bucky can see, stretching far into the horizon. The late afternoon light is casting everything into hues of pink. Bucky thinks it’s beautiful.

“Wow, the ducks really love you, huh,” the man next to him says. He looks remarkably like Howard Stark. He tells him as much.

“Who? The multimillionaire inventor? God, I wish.” The man strokes his neatly trimmed beard. “I hear he’s handsome, though.”

Bucky laughs. “He definitely knew how to get all the dames. Never saw a man less interested in settling down.”

Silence. Then: “Sounds like him, alright. Hey, you know what’s on the other side of the lake?”

Bucky falters. “Not sure.” He looks around. The ducks have followed them. “This is my first time in this side of the house.”

 

 

 

 

One night, he catches Steve looking out the window in the living room. Bucky had come to get some water. He fills two glasses.

“Steve?” He asks softly as he approaches.

Steve turns around. He’d been crying, Bucky notices. He wipes his tears hastily but can’t hide the redness in his eyes or the way his words come out shaky when he says, “Hey Buck. Need anything?”

“No. Just came to get water.” He sets the glasses on the coffee table. “What’s wrong?”

“This? Oh, nothing. I—”

“Rogers. Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Steve looks at him, long and hard, as if he is searching for something in Bucky’s face. Bucky meets his eyes. Apparently Steve likes what he sees because he sighs and says, “I miss you, Buck.”

Bucky frowns. “What are you talking about? I’m here.”

Steve laughs. It sounds empty and humorless. Bucky’s heart clenches. “That’s the problem. You’re here with me, but your brain is—it’s damaged. Gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have anterograde amnesia. You’ll forget this conversation in about five minutes.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“What year is it?”

Bucky is getting a little bit spooked at Steve’s sudden urgency. “What?”

“Buck, what year is it?”

“1943? Steve, what are you trying to—”

“It’s 2018.”

Bucky pauses, takes a step away from Steve. “You’re lying.”

“You ever wonder why we suddenly have all sorts of odd machines around? Or why this house is so damn huge? Or who are the random people who come visit us every single day?”

Bucky hasn’t put thought into any of it, he realizes with a start.

“We haven’t had guests in months,” is what he says.

Steve is desperate. He steps closer, grabs Bucky by the shoulders. “Natasha comes here whenever she can. She stays over when I have to travel with SHIELD. You trained her, taught her all she knows about espionage and combat and you loved her, you loved her enough to risk your own life for her and you forgot, you _forgot_ and—” 

“Steve, you’re frightening me.”

Steve immediately steps back, turns around so his back is to Bucky. Runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I just—”

“Stevie, please—” Bucky doesn’t know what he’s asking. He gently lays his arm on Steve’s shoulder.

“I love you, you know,” Steve starts. “I’ve loved you since we were children and you’d take care of me when I was sick.” He turns around and looks at Bucky with such tenderness and affection Bucky is undone. “We fought together during the war; you were my sniper, my eyes on the field and my best man. And I loved you every single moment of it, I loved you and I lost you, but then I thought I found you again years later when I had lost all hope.” Steve’s voice breaks. “And I lose you every single day, every moment, to your own mind.”  

Bucky is rendered speechless.

“And you’ll forget I every told you any of this.” Steve smiles, and it’s a small, sad thing that pierces Bucky’s heart. “Just as you forgot every single time I’ve told you.”

And Bucky doesn’t know what’s going on but this is Steve—Stevie, his best friend, the person he’d die for—and so he wraps Steve in his arms.

“C’mere, Steve, stop,” he’s saying, “I’m here, I’ve always been here, you punk.”

Steve breaks down. He sobs into his shirt and all Bucky can do is hold him close, rub his back, kiss his hair and whatever he can reach of him.

After what it feels like a lifetime later, Steve pulls back, wipes his tears, and offers Bucky a watery, shy smile.

“Sorry about that,” he says.

“No problem,” Bucky replies, feeling like he missed a whole conversation. “You want to talk about it?”

Steve hesitates a second too long, smile frozen in place, before he shakes his head.

“I’ll tell you. Just not right now.”

Bucky knows better than to press Steve. He nods.

 

 

 

 

Bucky wakes up to find Steve asleep next to him. They haven’t slept together since the war, when necessity and some really fucking cold nights eroded all pretense of propriety the Commandos might have had. He shifts so he can look at him better. Steve’s mouth is slightly open and he’s drooling a little, hair plastered against his forehead, looking like that skinny punk Bucky remembers so fondly. It’s not cute, not at all, except for the fact that it really is, Steve’s defenses forgotten in his sleep and his cheek smooshed against the pillow. A rush of affection fills him, makes him feel like his bones are all made of light. He reaches out to brush his hair from his face.

Steve opens his eyes. He doesn’t move an inch, just stares at Bucky.

Bucky’s smile comes slowly, sleepily.       

“I think I’m very much in love with you,” he blurts out, and that is not at all what he means to say, hadn’t even _thought_ about it that way, but he finds the words to be true and he’s too full of light to really be embarrassed.

Steve’s smile is brighter than the fucking sun. Bucky’s breath hitches.

“I love you too, Buck.”

Bucky grins. He commits this moment to memory.

 

 

 

 

Bucky is feeding the ducks. He cuts off small chunks off bread and tosses it at the mass of feathers and beaks waiting by his feet. Next to him, Steve is hunched over, sketchbook on his lap, making quick lines with a sure hand. The only sounds are the ducks and Steve’s pencil running over the paper. It’s peaceful, here. Bucky can sit on this exact bench and be alone with his thoughts. He’d like to come back.

Odd, he’d never been to this area of the house before—

 _–Except he has, multiple times; he’s fed these ducks multiple times, so often in fact they have started to follow him whenever he walks around the lake, the lake that goes past the horizon and never seems to end. And Steve has been here often too, stays with him whenever he can, and sometimes Natasha (Tasha;_ Natashenka _) stays too, and Bucky always thinks she’s a gorgeous stranger he can charm, always thinks she’s Steve’s date, and her placid expression never falls, her coy smile never wavers as she watches her Soldier slip away from her—_

“Steve—” he gasps, turning to grab his shoulders with a death grip.

“Bucky, what—?” Steve is asking, concern etched on every inch of his face, on his eyes that are as blue as he remembers them, and he’s still here, even now, beside him, when he’s nothing but a broken shell of man with a fucked up brain. And he’s trying to hold on to this, trying to hold on to it all, to the beautiful parts that involve Steve and even the terrible nightmares that were not nightmares at all, but still are part of him, all of it. And he doesn’t want to go back to that empty existence, he can’t, he must tell Steve—

“Steve—I remember— I remember you” And his hands are gripping Steve’s shirt with a death grip. He can’t get enough air into his lungs. “Oh God, I remember.”

“Buck, Christ, Buck—” Steve is not-so-gently cradling his face, pulling him closer, just as desperate.

“I meant it, every single time I said it,” Bucky can feel his tenuous grip on his sanity slipping, “I love you Stevie, always have, since ’38—”

Steve nods. He’s crying, too. “Buck, I love you too, everything will be okay, I promise.”

“Promise me, Steve Rogers, promise me—” and it’s leaving him, this clarity, so he crushes his lips against Steve’s and hopes to hell that Steve understands the message.

Steve pulls back. “Buck?”

Bucky leans back so he can see him better. “Christ, Steve, why are you crying?”

Steve’s face crumples, much like the sketchbook that now lies forgotten on the grass. “Sorry, I just… thought of something very beautiful.”

And Steve is smiling even as the tears slide down his cheeks, so Bucky, utterly perplexed, just says, “c’mere,” and holds him close.

The lake glitters with the dying rays of the sun.

  

 

 

 

Bucky is reading an old Captain America comic. It’s pretty good, he thinks; it has crisp, colorful pictures, even if the plot is hard to follow and he can’t remember how the story started in the first place. He flips the page, reads some more, and gives it up as a lost cause. He used to be an avid reader, before the war. Now, not so much. He idly wonders how his buddies from basic are doing.

A cup of tea is placed on the coffee table in front of him. Bucky looks up.

“Done reading that comic?” Clear blue eyes peer down at him. “I have the rest of the comics somewhere, just let me find them and I’ll bring them over.”

Bucky frowns. “Have we meet before?”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is ellaesaudaz.tumblr.com. Come shout at me about that ending :p


End file.
